CourseSchedulerAlgorithm.txt

Course Scheduler Algorithm


Ideologies/Goals:
- An optimized schedule is a schedule with the lowest variance in difficulty.
- An ideal schedules courses as early as possible.


Course Scheduler Algorithm:

The algorithm will run as follows: 
First, the average difficulty d’ will be calculated. Then the course schedule shall be planned (“Ordinary Course Schedule Planning”) with 
the constraint that each quarter’s total difficulty is less than or equal to d’. Therefore d’ is a lowerbound l’. 


If there are remaining courses R, the course scheduling algorithm shall be run on them but it shall be slightly augmented as follows:
i = 0.
l’ shall be updated to be l’ + diff(ByDifficulty(R)[|R| - 1 - i]), given c is the least difficult course. 
If the course schedule cannot be completely planned with the update, the changes with the updated l’ shall be scrapped and l’ 
shall be updated to l’ + diff(ByDifficulty(R)[|R| - 1 - i]) with i++. This shall continue until a complete course schedule can be planned. 


“Ordinary Course Schedule Planning” (Sub-algorithm):
Course schedule planning is a sub algorithm that will run as follows. Each course c shall have a “pre-requisite score” p. 
This score shall be computed as follows:
 
calculatePreReqScore ( c ):
        make set C of preReqs
        if | C |  == 0 
return 0
        return | C |  + foreach c’ in C { calculatePreReqScore (c’ }:


The courses shall be arranged by preReqScore (by preReqs taken, then by preReqScore then by asc - diff, then by desc units,). 
The course with highest preReqScore shall be scheduled into the first available quarter given that its preReq’s have been 
previously scheduled.

Things to Consider:
Verify correctness of algorithm?
What shall be done if a complete course schedule cannot be planned?
Running time?